Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1887-11-18
TRUSTS"

correspondent asks about the Trusts
which are now organizing throughout the
country. They are practically great mo-
nopolies. For instance, the large sugar
reiiners in all parts of the Union pool
their interests" upon certain terms, which
are believed by them to be. upon the
whole, advantageous enough to Justify
the action. They agree upon certain
rates ana courses. and the public result
Is that they control the price of sugar to
the consumer. 1t is but another illustra-
ton of the tendency to the consolidation
of capital. which is Familiarity illustrated
in the aggregation of railroad interests,
and results in the development of new
and most powerful agent in modern af-
fairs. A few weeks since, Mr.. Depew,
the president of the Central railroad, was
reported to have said that the twelve or
fifteen thousand employees of the road
voted as they pleased, and he thought that
they generally or often voted for the
party which he opposed. Mr.. Depew is
quite beyond the suspicion of unfairly in
fluencing the vote of any man. But his
remark is very suggestive.
Political committees of the adminstra-
ton party have been long in the habit Of
levying heavy assessments upon the pub
lie employees, and of reqniring their ac-
tivity as well as votes at the polls. Sena-
tor Germans ring in Maryland extorted
about $50, 900 from the federal offlce-hold-
ers to help carry this election, and as
much more from the State and city en-
ployees, and probably the candidates upon
the ring ticket gave or pledged two-thirds
Of their prospective salaries for the same
object. 1t is remorseless despotism,
and whether under Republican or Demo
cratic aseendency, the employee of the
government gives and votes as he is d-
rected. Consolidated private corpora
tons, of course, have the same power.
AS Webster said, to control a mans
means of livelihood is to control the man.
1t is easily conceivable that corporation
like the Central railroad might say to its
employees that its interests required the
election of a certain candidate, and that
it could not retain employees who voted
against its interests. The same thing is
conceivable of the Sugar Trust or any
other Trust extending over the whole
country.
The chief of trades-union conducting
a strike said to the employers: "You or
ganize monopoly so as to have things
your own way, and you cannot complain
of us for trying to do the same thing. If
we try to diminish the number of work.
men in our trade and to keep up wages,
you try to reduce production and keep
up prices. If we deny individual indie
pendence, so do you, and we both do it
for the same object; that is, our advantage
as class" The Sugar Trust aims at a
monopoly in sugar, as trades-union
combination aims at monopoly in labor.
The tendency is universal, and issues in
one of the gravest problems of the time.
Politically it organizes interests and de-
stroys political independence. Morally
it abolishes the individual self-res pect
which is the true basis of the state. 1t is
striking form of the socialism which APP
pears in many of the tendencies of modern
activity, and whose worst result is the
destruction of the self-reliance which is
the most precious quality in human So
ciety.-T Harper's Weekly.